Leanne Shapton > Quotes

“The pictures achieve something rarely articulated about the metaphysical state of swimming: The body, immersed, feels amplified, heavier and lighter at the same time. Weightless yet stronger.”
― Leanne Shapton, Swimming Studies

“When I swim now, I step into the water as though absentmindedly touching a scar.”
― Leanne Shapton, Swimming Studies

“All that work and then, finally, something levitates. When the minute stresses of practice fade, the specialness emerges. There is a quotation from "On Directing Film" by David Mamet that I underlined in 1993 and have never forgotten: "Stanislavsky wrote that the difficult will become easy and the easy habitual, so that the habitual may become beautiful.”
― Leanne Shapton, Swimming Studies

“Being pool-trained, I'm used to seeing four sides and a bottom. When that clarity is removed I get nervous. I imagine things. Sharks, the slippery sides of large fish, shaggy pieces of sunken frigates, dark corroded iron, currents. I can swim along the shore, my usual stroke rolled and tipped by the waves, the ribbed sandy bottom wiggling beneath me, but eventually I get spooked by the open-ended horizon, the cloudy blue thought of that sheer drop-the continental shelf.”
― Leanne Shapton, Swimming Studies

“I think of the limitations that "specialness" requires: doing a series of very unspecial things, very well, over and over (...) (P223)”
― Leanne Shapton, Swimming Studies

“I've defined myself, privately and abstractly, by my brief, intense years as an athlete, a swimmer. I practiced five or six hours a day, six days a week, eating and sleeping as much as possible in between. Weekends were spent either training or competing. I wasn't the best; I was relatively fast. I trained, ate, traveled, and showered with the best in the country, but wasn't the best; I was pretty good.


I liked how hard swimming at that level was- that I could do something difficult and unusual. Liked knowing my discipline would be recognized, respected, that I might not be able to say the right things or fit in, but I could do something well. I wanted to believe that I was talented; being fast was proof. Though I loved racing, the idea of fastest, of number one, of the Olympics, didn't motivate me.

I still dream of practice, of races, coaches and blurry competitors. I'm drawn to swimming pools, all swimming pools, no matter how small or murky. When I swim now, I step into the water as though absentmindedly touching a scar. My recreational laps are phantoms of my competitive races”
― Leanne Shapton

“I've defined myself, privately and publicly, by my brief, intense years as an athlete, a swimmer. I practices five or six hours a day, six days a week, eating and sleeping as much as possible. Weekends were either spent training or competing. I wasn't the best; I was relatively fast...”
― Leanne Shapton, Swimming Studies

“Stanislavsky wrote that the difficult will become easy and the easy habitual, so that the habitual my become beautiful. (P224)”
― Leanne Shapton, Swimming Studies